Renting to students

With more than 17,000 UK students facing rent arrears what should landlords who target this tenant be doing to mitigate the risk?

Statistics state that the number of students that have been evicted from halls of residence have doubled over the past year rising from 40 to 97.

Average rent for students

The average UK student spends £131 per week on rent, with London topping the student rental chart at an average rent of £222. The university where students pay the highest rents is The London School of Economics with an average rent of £293 per week.

Student accommodation

Most students, where possible are offered accommodation within halls of residence for their first year of studies. If this isn’t available, the university will usually have a database of landlords and properties within the local area. If you are a landlord and want to open your property up to rent to students contacting the university will be a good place to start.

HMO

With new House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) rules being introduced late last year defining an HMO as any property occupied by five or more people, forming two or more separate households most student accommodation will fall into this category.

HMO licenses

Landlords of HMO accommodation must have a license. You can apply for a license here.

Rent guarantors

If you want peace of mind, having guarantor agreements in place for the tenants is a must.

A guarantor must:

Be a UK resident

In employment or have income from investments such as pensions

Be a homeowner

Joint and several liability Guarantor agreements

A joint and several guarantor agreements means that all guarantors for the individuals in the property have liability for the full amount should the rent for the property fall into arrears. Some guarantors will see this as too much exposure to risk, so some landlords have amended the wording so that the guarantor for an individual is only liable for their rental arrears. You can read more here about guarantor agreements.

David Asker

David is an authorised High Court Enforcement Officer and our Director of Corporate Governance

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The statements and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of SHCE Ltd, trading as The Sheriffs Office. SHCE Ltd does not take any responsibility for the views of the author. The author will not be held responsible for any comments posted by visitors to this site. Please note that this article does not constitute legal advice. The author has used his best endeavours to make this article as accurate and complete as possible at the date of writing, but requests that the reader be aware that the law of England and Wales frequently changes. The author strongly advises the reader to take legal advice before embarking on any enforcement action. Please see the website terms and conditions regarding reproduction of this article.

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